▪︎ Chapter 113 ▪︎ “I couldn’t see much.”

Lavinia absently stepped on something that was still squirming.

There was a wet crunch beneath her boot. 

She glanced down, found some many-legged creature she couldn't immediately identify writhing in the blood-soaked grass, and shifted her weight until it stopped moving. 

Two more small things crawled through the remains nearby, and she crushed those as well before continuing toward the hastily constructed supply point.

At this stage, she barely thought about it.

The Tide was effectively broken. Scattered animals still moved through the surrounding forest and occasionally stumbled into the defensive positions, but the overwhelming flood was gone. 

Gunfire had become intermittent rather than continuous, and the artillery that had shaken the night for hours had finally fallen mostly silent. 

Soldiers moved cautiously beyond their former positions, checking the dead, recovering equipment, and killing wounded creatures that remained dangerous.

Lavinia looked up at the sky.

It wasn't even particularly late.

The night was still young, which made the entire ordeal considerably less annoying in retrospect. 

She had awakened early because of the disturbance, flown twenty miles to a manor, discovered a vampire armory, found an enormous sword that apparently belonged in her hands, helped prevent Oakridge from being overrun, killed hundreds to thousands of creatures, and participated in bringing down something nearly a hundred feet tall.

A productive evening.

Her dress was disgusting, her hair desperately needed washing, and traces of the Behemoth's green fluids continued making patches of her skin itch until regeneration corrected the irritation, but overall?

Could've been worse.

She'd saved people.

That mattered more than she wanted to make a dramatic point of admitting.

The supply point had grown considerably since she'd last been there. 

Ammunition crates sat open beneath portable lights, medical personnel moved between wounded soldiers, and several exhausted men and women sat against whatever solid surfaces they could find. 

Some stared blankly into the distance. Others spoke quietly among themselves, their weapons still within reach.

Lavinia stepped beneath the temporary covering.

Several heads immediately turned toward her.

"There she is."

Lavinia paused.

A soldier who had been sitting on an ammunition crate stood. "General—uh..."

"Lavinia."

"Right. Lavinia." He glanced past her toward the forest. "Thank you."

Another soldier nearby nodded immediately. "Seriously. Thank you."

Then another joined in.

Lavinia found herself surrounded by gratitude before she'd quite decided what to do with the first expression of it.

"We saw that thing coming," a woman said from beside a table covered in equipment. Her helmet sat beside her, revealing sweat-matted brown hair. "Didn't know what the hell we were supposed to do against it."

"Probably die," someone muttered.

"Very inspiring, Daniels."

"It's true."

A few exhausted laughs followed.

The first soldier looked back at Lavinia. "If you and the others hadn't shown up..."

He didn't finish.

He didn't need to.

Lavinia had already thought the same thing. Humans weren't meant to confront the Behemoth. 

Heavy weapons might have eventually brought it down, assuming enough remained available and the creature conveniently allowed itself to be bombarded from a distance. 

Up close, ordinary infantry would have been reduced to trying not to get stepped on.

Some of these people would have died.

Possibly most of them.

Lavinia smiled faintly. "I only did what I should've."

The soldier opened his mouth, but she pointed toward him before he could respond. "And so did you."

That seemed to catch him off guard.

Lavinia gestured around the supply point. "You all signed up for this. I didn't. I just woke up one morning looking like this and discovered I could lift a thousand pounds."

Someone snorted.

"So don't act like what I did somehow counts more because it was flashier. You've been standing out here since before sunset, fighting things that can actually kill you. I'd say that makes you at least as helpful as I was."

Several soldiers suddenly looked considerably less comfortable with the conversation.

Lavinia noticed.

Her smile widened.

"Oh, now you're embarrassed?"

"No, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lavinia stared at him.

Someone laughed.

She giggled and finally spotted what she'd actually come for.

Her greatsword remained exactly where she'd left it, driven point-first into the ground near the edge of the supply position. 

It towered over everyone nearby, nearly nine feet of dark supernatural metal stained with the remains of the night's fighting. 

Blood-red crystals gleamed along its fittings, and even from several feet away Lavinia could smell herself on it beneath the overwhelming scents of the battlefield.

She walked over and closed one hand around the long grip.

That familiar sense of rightness returned immediately.

"Thanks for watching my weapon."

"Nobody was going to steal it," the soldier from earlier said.

Lavinia glanced over her shoulder. "Good answer."

She pulled.

Nearly two hundred pounds of sword slid smoothly from the earth. Lavinia rotated it upright with one hand, barely slowing as the point cleared the ground, then rested the enormous weapon against her shoulder.

A few soldiers stared despite having already seen what she could do with it.

Lavinia smiled at them and turned away.

She'd made it perhaps twenty feet when conversation resumed behind her.

"Stop staring."

"I'm not staring."

"You're absolutely staring."

A woman's voice joined them. "She's a vampire, you idiots. She's too pretty for your ugly mugs."

Immediate jeers answered her.

"Like you're not staring too!"

"I have standards."

"That's not what you said about—"

"Finish that sentence and I'm throwing you into the spider."

Lavinia's pointed ear twitched.

She snorted quietly.

She didn't really mind.

Vampires were pretty.

That wasn't arrogance so much as an increasingly obvious fact. If she were still human and a vampire walked past looking the way they did, Lavinia would have stared too. 

Men stared. Women stared. Sometimes both tried to pretend they weren't staring, which generally made it even more obvious.

The only real difference now was that Lavinia was on the other side of it.

"Popular?"

Lavinia looked over.

Valerie approached through the battlefield with her chain dragging behind her.

The articulated black-metal weapon left a winding trail through blood and mud, occasionally catching against a corpse before Valerie casually tugged it free. 

She stretched both arms above her head as she walked, orange hair shifting around her shoulders.

"I did a lot today," Valerie announced.

"You did."

"A lot."

"You want praise?"

"Obviously."

Lavinia smiled. "Good job."

Valerie lowered her arms. "That wasn't enough."

Lavinia was preparing something appropriately obnoxious when a rhythmic thumping approached from the darkness.

Both vampires turned.

A massive white wolf trotted toward them.

Lavinia recognized her before she reached them. The wolf's fur was stained with blood in several places, though most appeared to belong to other creatures. 

Golden eyes regarded them as she slowed, tail swaying once behind her.

Then her body began changing.

The transformation happened quickly. The enormous lupine frame contracted, limbs changing proportion while white fur withdrew across dark skin. 

The wolf's muzzle shortened into a human face, paws became hands and feet, and within moments a woman stood where the enormous animal had been.

A completely naked woman.

Very long white hair spilled around her body almost immediately. Chloe caught several thick sections with both hands and hastily pulled them over her chest.

"Great to see you two again."

Lavinia looked away.

Mostly.

Valerie noticed the mostly.

Lavinia stabbed her greatsword into the ground beside herself.

Chloe yawned. Her large white ears remained atop her head, twitching independently, while a fluffy white tail swayed behind her. "Chloe, by the way. Don't think we ever properly introduced ourselves."

"I remember you," Lavinia said while looking somewhere slightly to Chloe's left. "Broadcasting studio."

Chloe smiled. "Yeah. That was a day."

Valerie glanced over her. "Are you not going to put clothes on?"

Chloe looked down at herself.

Then around.

"I'd love to."

She spread one hand.

"Do you see clothes?"

Valerie's mouth twitched.

Chloe adjusted her hair over herself and shrugged. "Besides, there isn't all that much to see."

Lavinia looked back.

Her eyes traveled downward for perhaps half a second.

"You're a lot more toned than I thought you'd be."

Valerie immediately grabbed Lavinia's face.

Her palm covered both of Lavinia's eyes.

Lavinia exhaled dejectedly. "I couldn't see much."

"That's the idea."

"It's dark anyway."

Valerie slowly turned her head toward Lavinia.

Lavinia couldn't see the expression.

She could feel it.

They were vampires.

Darkness meant absolutely nothing to either of them.

"Right," Valerie said.

Lavinia smiled beneath her hand.

Chloe laughed. "Were you a guy before?"

Lavinia nodded, accidentally moving Valerie's hand with her face. "Yeah."

"That explains it."

"It doesn't matter that much." Lavinia lifted one shoulder. "Girls would stare too. Because, damn."

Valerie groaned.

Lavinia wasn't even exaggerating.

Chloe was built.

Not excessively so. She wasn't covered in enormous muscles or shaped like a competitive bodybuilder. 

Her figure remained distinctly feminine, with broad curves softened by enough body fat that the muscle beneath didn't overwhelm them. 

But her stomach was visibly defined, her legs powerful, and clean muscle lines followed her arms, shoulders, and back.

She looked athletic in a way Lavinia hadn't expected.

Which was apparently pleasing to the eye.

Interesting.

Lavinia had never considered herself particularly interested in muscular women.

Perhaps there were exceptions.

"I'm not doing anything," Lavinia protested.

"You are narrating with your face."

"My face is covered!"

"I know your face."

Chloe laughed again, seemingly completely unbothered by the exchange. "I don't really care. Nudity isn't much of a thing in the pack anymore."

That made sense.

Turning into an enormous wolf destroyed clothing. 

If every transformation ended with embarrassment and frantic attempts to cover oneself, werewolf packs would accomplish very little besides being embarrassed.

Chloe glanced toward the human soldiers nearby. "Humans still have their rules, though. I should probably find something before somebody gets upset."

She turned and started away, still holding her hair across herself. 

Her white ears twitched at some distant sound, and her tail moved slowly from side to side as she headed toward one of the supply areas.

Lavinia reached up and grabbed Valerie's wrist.

She pried the hand away from her face.

Her expression was speechless.

"If she dares to display it, why can't I look?"

Valerie stared at her. "You're shameless."

Lavinia gasped.

Then her eyes narrowed.

"Wait."

Valerie's expression changed.

"You covered my eyes."

"Yes."

"Who covered yours?"

Valerie said nothing.

Lavinia pointed accusingly at her. "I could still hear everything perfectly. You didn't look away once!"

"That's different."

"How?"

"It just is."

"Valerie!"

Valerie turned and started gathering her chain.

Lavinia followed. "Hypocrite."

"I'm not."

"You stared at Chloe while physically preventing me from staring at Chloe."

"I was protecting your innocence."

"You attacked my freedom."

Valerie shook her head, orange hair moving around her shoulders. "Do you prefer muscles now?"

The question stopped Lavinia for a moment.

She looked down at herself.

Then she placed one hand against her stomach.

There wasn't much visible definition there. Vampires simply didn't look particularly muscular. Their bodies appeared soft, delicate and almost fragile at times. 

Lavinia's arms were slender. Valerie's were too. Nothing about either of them suggested the amount of physical force they could produce.

It was one of the stranger contradictions of vampirism.

Lavinia could lift weights that would crush a human beneath them, swing a two-hundred-pound sword at terrifying speed and physically overpower creatures several times her mass.

Yet she looked like she'd struggle with a heavy grocery bag.

"I don't know," Lavinia admitted. "It's nice."

Valerie looked at her suspiciously.

Lavinia bumped her shoulder against Valerie's. "But vampires don't really have visible muscles like that."

"No."

"We're all soft."

Valerie smiled faintly. "You're very soft."

"Exactly."

"That wasn't what I meant."

Lavinia ignored that. She looked at Valerie for another moment before smiling. "You're perfect as you are anyway."

Valerie's expression softened despite herself.

Lavinia leaned closer. "You're your own type."

Valerie blinked. "That's cheating."

"It's true."

"Vampires are vampires' type because we're vampires."

Lavinia thought about that.

"In the end, isn't that basically the same thing?"

Valerie opened her mouth, paused, then frowned as though annoyed that Lavinia's nonsense contained enough truth to be inconvenient.

Lavinia hummed thoughtfully.

It was strange.

If she imagined pursuing a human romantically, she could think of plenty of preferences immediately. 

Appearance mattered. Personality mattered. Attraction mattered. There would be things she liked and things she didn't, just as there had been before she became a vampire.

With vampires, the appearance part was almost automatically cleared.

Not because they looked identical. They didn't. Skin tones varied. Hair colors varied dramatically. Faces were distinct. Their gothic dresses weren't identical either.

But every vampire Lavinia had met was beautiful.

Then there was the natural closeness between them.

She liked Valerie.

She liked Gwendolyn.

She liked Rosaline, Celestine, Cordelia, Evelyn, Adelaide, Evangeline, Violetta, Ophelia. 

She'd met some far more recently than others, yet the barrier that normally existed between strangers simply wasn't as strong among vampires.

Perhaps that was why the lines blurred so easily.

Friendship.

Affection.

Attraction.

Physical intimacy.

There didn't seem to be much reason to construct rigid walls between them when everyone involved naturally wanted to be close anyway.

Lavinia looked at Valerie.

Valerie noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're thinking something."

"You're pretty."

Valerie stared at her.

Lavinia smiled.

"That's what you were thinking?"

"Partly."

"What's the other part?"

Lavinia stepped behind her and wrapped both arms around Valerie's waist.

Valerie made a small noise of surprise when Lavinia pressed against her back, chin settling against her shoulder.

"You smell better than I do."

"Everyone smells better than you right now."

"Mean."

Valerie's orange hair brushed Lavinia's cheek. Beneath the blood and smoke covering the battlefield, Lavinia could still pick out the familiar scent of tangerines and honey.

She breathed it in deliberately.

Valerie tried to suppress the upward curl of her lips.

Failed.

Lavinia giggled against her shoulder. "We should find Violetta and see what we're supposed to be doing."

Valerie huffed with exaggerated dignity. "Finally, a sensible thought."

She reached down for her chain.

Lavinia remained attached.

Valerie looked over her shoulder. "Are you moving?"

"No."

"Lavinia."

"Carry me."

"I'm not carrying you."

"You could."

"Yes."

"So carry me."

"No."

Valerie grabbed Lavinia's hand and peeled one arm from around her waist. She stepped forward while keeping hold of it, forcing Lavinia to either release her completely or follow.

Lavinia chose to follow.

She reached for the greatsword with her free hand and pulled it smoothly from the ground.

The immense weapon rose beside her as easily as though it weighed a fraction of its actual mass, while Valerie gathered enough of her chain to keep it from tangling around corpses.

Then they started toward the command center.

Valerie walked ahead, still holding Lavinia by the hand.

Lavinia allowed herself to be dragged for several steps before smiling.

"You stared at Chloe."

Valerie's shoulders stiffened.

"I did not."

"You did."

"I was making sure she was decent."

"By looking at her naked?"

Valerie increased her pace.

Lavinia followed effortlessly, the greatsword balanced against one shoulder.

"Valerie."

"Stop."

"You liked the abs."

"I will hit you with my chain."

"You'd miss me."

"I absolutely wouldn't."

Lavinia giggled and squeezed Valerie's hand.

Valerie didn't let go.

Around them, soldiers continued securing the battlefield while the last scattered gunshots echoed from the forest. 

The Tide had broken, the Behemoth lay dead, and Oakridge remained standing.

For now, that was enough.

And with most of the night still ahead of them, Lavinia found herself considerably more interested in teasing Valerie than thinking about what tomorrow might bring.